Rethinking Taiwan's universal service policy in the broadband environment

Abstract

Universal service policy and broadband policy have been discussed by many advanced countries for over a decade. They continue to be important policies in these countries because they bridge the digital divide and increase effectiveness and competitiveness. In recent years, another issue related to these two policies is whether the universal service policy could be extended to include broadband. In 2003, the OECD started to debate the preconditions for widening the scope of the universal service obligation to include broadband. In 2005, the EU also began formal public consultations to discuss the possibility of revising the Universal Service Directive to include broadband as part of the universal service obligation. In 2006, the government of Taiwan revised the universal service regulation to extend the scope of this service to broadband in uneconomic areas. This paper aims to re-examine Taiwan's universal service policy in the broadband environment. It discusses whether the government of Taiwan has adopted the broadband universal service policy in legal terms, and asks what the connection should be between universal service policy and broadband policy in Taiwan.